Chapter 5 — The Cracks in the Castle

The lights died at eleven forty-two PM on my fourth night in Dominic Ashford's house.

No flicker. No warning. One second the hallway sconce outside my room was glowing, and the next, the entire house went black. The heater shuddered, groaned, and fell silent. Within minutes, the cold started creeping back in, reclaiming every room like it had been waiting at the edges all along.

I pulled a blanket around my shoulders and opened my door to absolute darkness. Somewhere upstairs, a small voice called out. "Daddy?"

Luca. Then Lily, quieter: "It's just the power, stupid."

"Both of you, downstairs. Bring your blankets."

I followed the sound of shuffling feet to the main living room, where Dominic was already on his knees in front of the stone fireplace, feeding logs into a fire that crackled and spat. His sleeves were rolled to his elbows. His hair was undone from its usual careful order, falling across his forehead.

He looked almost human.

Luca claimed the spot closest to the fire immediately, dragging his blanket into a nest on the floor and curling up inside it like a satisfied animal. Lily sat on the far end of the couch, knees pulled to her chest, watching the flames with an expression I couldn't read.

Then she looked at the space next to her. Look at me. Looked back at the fire.

I sat down beside her. She didn't move away.

Dominic noticed. I saw his eyes track the distance between us, and saw the tiny furrow between his brows. But he didn't say anything. He couldn't retreat to his study tonight. The study was on the other side of the house, already freezing, and the fire was here, and so were his children, and so was I.

For the first time since I'd arrived, we were all in the same room with nowhere else to go.

"Tell us a story, Tessa!" Luca's face popped up from his blanket nest, lit gold by the fire. "A good one. With a princess."

"And a dragon," he added. "Actually, no. A dinosaur."

"How about a snow princess?"

"Yes!"

I pulled my blanket tighter. This was territory I knew. Before Marcus, before everything collapsed, I planned children's events. And every event had a story.

"Once upon a time," I said, "there was a princess who lived on the tallest mountain in the world. She built herself a castle out of ice and snow, and it was the most beautiful castle anyone had ever seen. But she built it so high that nobody could reach her. No visitors. No friends. No noise. Just silence and cold and perfect, perfect walls."

Luca was rapt. Lily hadn't blinked.

"One morning, a little bird landed on her windowsill. Just a small thing, brown feathers, nothing special. The princess opened the window to shoo it away. 'Go,' she said. 'There's nothing for you here.' But the bird didn't leave. It just tilted its head and looked at her. And it came back the next day. And the next. And the next."

"Did the princess let it in?" Luca whispered.

"Not at first. She tried everything. She closed the shutters. She built the walls higher. She told the bird it was wasting its time. But the bird kept coming back. And one day, the princess realized something."

"What?"

"That she'd built the castle to keep everyone out. But she'd locked herself in."

Silence. The fire popped. I glanced up and caught Dominic's reflection in the dark window behind him. He was staring at me. Not at the fire. At me. His face was stripped of its usual armor, the hard jaw, the flat eyes, the mouth that never bent. In the glass, unguarded, he looked like a man listening to something he recognized.

Our eyes met in the reflection. He looked away first.

"Tessa, I'm cold," Luca announced. "Can we get more blankets?"

"I'll get them." I stood up.

"Top of the stairs, hall closet." Dominic was on his feet too. "I'll help. They're on the high shelf."

We climbed the stairs in the dark, using phone flashlights (Mrs. Flores had found a charger for mine). The hallway was narrow. The closet was narrower. I reached for the top shelf and couldn't quite get there, and he reached over me at the same time.

His chest pressed against my shoulder. His hand closed on the blanket stack and he started to pull them down and I turned at the wrong moment, or the right one, and we collided.

His free hand caught my arm. Steadied me.

Neither of us moved.

His fingers were warm through my sleeve. I could feel his breath, close, uneven. The flashlight threw his face into sharp relief, shadows under his cheekbones, a softness around his mouth I'd never seen before. The heat between us had nothing to do with the fire downstairs.

He let go like I'd burned him. Stepped back. Shoved the blankets into my arms.

"We should get back," he said, and his voice had gone rough.

He was down the stairs before I could answer.

I tucked the twins in on the couch, layering blankets until Luca was nothing but a tuft of brown hair and a satisfied grin. He grabbed my hand as I smoothed the blanket over him.

"Tessa?"

"Yeah, buddy?"

"I wish you could be our Christmas."

My throat tightened. "What do you mean?"

"Like, instead of presents. I wish you could just stay."

I opened my mouth, but nothing came out that wouldn't be a lie or a promise I couldn't keep. Before I could find the words, I felt it. A small hand, reaching from the other end of the couch where Lily lay with her eyes closed, her breathing too even to be real. Her fingers found the edge of my sleeve and gripped.

She held on for three seconds. I counted.

Then she let go. Rolled over. Pretended she'd been asleep the whole time.

I sat on the floor with my back against the couch and let the tears come, silent, where no one could see.

The power kicked back on at two in the morning. The lights blazed to life. The twins were asleep for real now, tangled together under their blankets.

I went to the kitchen for water and stopped in the doorway.

Dominic sat at the table. He hadn't turned the kitchen light on. The glow from the hallway fell across his hands, and in them he held a framed photograph. One of the ones that had left ghost outlines on the walls.

His thumb moved across the glass. Slow. Like a man touching a wound.

Then he sensed me. His head snapped up. His hand moved fast, flipping the photo face-down on the table with a sharp clack.

His eyes were red.

He said nothing. I said nothing. The kitchen clock ticked between us.

I turned and walked back to the living room. I didn't sleep. I lay in the dark next to two children who were already worming their way under my skin, and I knew with certainty that it settled in my chest like a stone.

Whatever broke this man, it broke him completely.